


Sing Me A Love Song

by queenklu



Category: due South
Genre: Fanfiction, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-19
Updated: 2010-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was gonna haunt me when I no longer had the plague.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Me A Love Song

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The tenses flip on purpose. ^o^

[](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/146711.html)  
[soundtrack is here](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/146711.html).  


 

Must’ve been three months since we started working together when I got sick—that’s the first time it happened. I mean, we’re talking sick as a dog here, and not like a ham of a half-wolf who wallows for weeks if he so much as chips a nail. I was flat out. Flat on my back, took every fucking thing I had to get the phone and call in to Welsh, and even then I gave up and crawled to the couch afterwards ‘cause it was closer.

I was too hot but it hurt to twist the way I needed to take off clothes, and I wasn’t wearing much to begin with. So I just wound up lying there, you know, sorta on my sofa (I was pretty sure), and so fucking tired I couldn’t sleep. I must’ve stared at the TV remote for hours trying to talk myself into reaching for it. Just fucking could not move.

So someone starts knocking on my door.

Someone? Pffft, yeah right. Like any other freak in Chicago wants something to do with me. Like even if it was just a neighbor looking to borrow something they wouldn’t be pounding the door instead because that’s what you _do_ , big city.

“Fraser.” Well, I tried to say it. I could barely manage a rough sort of rasp, definitely not anything he could’ve heard, but the knocking stopped.

Then it was Fraser’s voice calling my name through the wood, and I’d known, I’d _known_ it was him but it still felt really good to _know,_ too, you know? Any case, I could hear Fraser talking to me, probably trying to get me to open the door, but my ears felt all swollen and my head’s underwater, felt like, and by the time I got my mouth open I could hear his boots walking away.

And that right there is the story of my life. I mean, I got the one freak—the one _person_ in the entirety of Chicago who might actually give a damn if I was dying (like I’m something special. What, Kowalski? He’s Canadian, he’s programmed to care like that) and I can’t get it together enough for him to stick around.

Then, though. Next thing I know he’s right there, crouched down so he’s just inches from my face so even these crappy, watery eyes of mine can see he’s worried. He gets all crinkly-eyed and frowny when he’s worried. Oops, might’ve said that out loud. Fuck, might have said _that_ out loud.

The crinkly-eyes stayed but the frown quirked a little, and Fraser said—holy _shit,_ way too loud—he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Lobachev, we should be all right now.”

And I tried to tell Fraser, “No, I’m Kowalski, remember? Not Vecchio, not Lobachev,” but then I remembered she’s my landlady, and then I could hear her chittering something before she shut my door and twirled her keys, locking us in again.

Heh. Locked in with Fraser. Somehow this seemed funny to me.

“Ray,” Fraser said then, speaking slow and patient like he does to Dief, and I’m thinking that’s probably a good idea, considering. “ _Ray._ Ray. Ray.”

Hate when he does that. Usually means I’m walking not in the direction of the car. I coughed, or grunted or something to make him shut up.

“Ray.” And now I can see it. I’ve got a hand on his face, cupping the side of it. He’s got his fingers holding my wrist, tip of one tucked under the silver chain. “How are you feeling? I need you to tell me.”

Aw, man. I frowned at him. He couldn’t have asked me something easy, like, like something about curling? “Mean.” The word came out garbled and awful, but he seemed to get it. Sort of.

He looked be—bewildebeested. “You feel mean?”

“No. You.” I tapped his forehead with one of the fingers already there. Then I sighed, because that? Not buddies. “Ugh, Frase.” Felt better when I wasn’t pushing sound out, when I could just shove air past my lips to make words. My ears stayed popped when I did it that way too. “’M sick.”

“Yes, I can see that.” He huffed like he was losing patience with me, and that didn’t hardly seem fair, did it? I’d seen this guy not lose patience with a suspect after a six-hour interrogation, but you put him in a room with me… I tuned back into his rattling off my pulse rate and eye-dilation just in time to hear, “Have you had anything to eat or drink yet today?”

I gave him what I could scrape up of my _Yeah, what do you think?_ patented Kowalski look, and I felt the crinkles show up under my hand. Oh. So not so much a no patience thing as a…okay.

Fraser was gone before I could whisper, “Sorry,”—not too sure what I was apologizing for, there—and without his face to hold it up my whole arm fell off the couch. I let it. Not much else to do.

My ears were feeling a little less swollen—or at least enough to hear stuff, ‘cause I could hear Fraser rummaging through my kitchen, muttering things that didn’t make sense. Probably talking to Dief, though I hadn’t heard him come in. Stuff like, “Yes, I know,” and, “Well, what would you have me do?” and, “He’s my _friend_ ,” and that made my stomach flip over until I realized that was just the smell of oil cooking on the stove.

Oh God. I was gonna hurl. I’d known eating was a bad, bad, oh God oh God oh— I freaked, grabbed Fraser’s jacket where he’d left it on the coffee table and pressed it to my face, covering my nose and mouth with the smell of wool and that leather polish stuff and real leather and Fraser, and breathed and breathed until the roaring in my ears dimmed enough that I could hear Fraser chanting my name. I looked up, and he had these wide, wide eyes fixed on me as he pushed open the kitchen windows to get rid of the smell. Probably worried I’d hurl on his uniform. I gave him a real shaky O-K sign and sank bank into the couch, wondering when I’d sat up. I didn’t take the coat off my face, though. Not dumb.

I let the sound of Fraser apologizing roll over me, explaining how he needed the oil warmed for some poultice thing or other blah blah blah—timed my breathing to it. Moving slow, I managed to get the coat on, kept it unbuttoned so I could wrap the collar up over my nose. Just kept listening to the Mountie wrapped in Mountie-smells, absorbing all that superpower into my squirming belly. I couldn’t be sick because Fraser never got sick because Fraser was a Mountie. It all made sense in my head when I thought it enough.

I didn’t open my eyes when Fraser sat down next to me, not right away. Kinda glanced at him under my lashes just to make sure he wasn’t holding food. He wasn’t. Just tea. But he caught me looking and ducked his head to keep my gaze, that coaxing-small-children-to-the-moral-high-ground smile on his face. He probably saw my nose twitch in a sneer because he just said, “Ray,” in that way he does when I’m being childish and I know it, “I made you some tea.”

It took quite a lot, but I managed to stick my tongue out at him. It caught on the top of his collar, underside dragging on wool.

“Ray,” he said again, eyes flicking back up to mine. He was thinking about when he’d get his coat to the dry cleaners, I could tell. And he must’ve known I could tell ‘cause he went a little pink at the tips of his ears. “Please.” He put a hand on my shoulder—over his black stripey things—thumb rubbing circles on the wool. “It will make you feel better.”

I felt cold all of a sudden, shivery. I was just in my boxers and this thin sleep-tee under the jacket, and I dragged my knees up to my chest and tried to fit inside Fraser’s coat. No dice, of course. The guy’s not that much bigger than me, actually a good inch shorter, though no one will believe me until we stand back to back and measure.

So I got so caught up in that, that I didn’t notice Fraser shifting closer until he was one long line of heat against my left side, knee to hip and all the way up my ribs and over my shoulders because that’s where his arm was, around me. If it wasn’t for the fact that I felt like death, like that dead caribou Fraser hid inside for eleven weeks or whatever, this might’ve been a problem. ‘Cause, you know. Fraser. You gotta be dead or Dewey to not want Fraser, and I’m not even too sure about Dewey.

But see, I’m a tough guy. Ask anybody. Except Stella, ‘cause you know what Stella knows that no one else but my mama does? I’m a complete pup when I’m sick. So while maybe there might’ve been problems with Fraser’s arm around me before, at least I’d’ve had the strength to fight it. If I was healthy.

No fucking chance, now. Not with Fraser’s chin propped up on my arm, blinking wide and too innocent at me as his free hand eased the mug closer to my mouth, murmuring, teasing little, “Hm? Hmm?” noises all the way.

I didn’t even have the strength to glare at him anymore, though I gave it my best shot, easing the collar down with my stiff, shaking fingers. I was just real glad he didn’t want me to hold it or nothing ‘cause I’d’ve spilled it all over his coat for sure. The rim touched my bottom lip and I let my mouth open, puffing the steam away. I barely made ripples, it was so weak.

Fraser caught on before I could hardly pull a face and said, “Here, let me,” and before I could stop him he pursed his lips and blew.

Jesus. _Jesus._

This was gonna haunt me when I no longer had the plague.

When I opened my eyes the crinkles were back around his, so I quickly took a gulp of still too hot tea to distract us both. Still too hot, gross, fuck, _disgusting_ tea, and I tried to push him away so I wouldn’t hurl on him but his arm tightened around me and his head touched mine and my stomach rolled, heaved…then settled.

 _See?_ Fraser’s smile said. _Trust me._ And what can you say to a smile like that, even if you can talk?

By the time I’d choked down the tea my stomach felt almost normal, and my blood felt like it was pumping at least room temperature again. I was e-fucking-xhausted. ‘Let’ was a very strong word for ‘letting’ my head rest on Fraser’s arm. More like there were no more bones in my neck. A low, hopefully grateful hum tingled my lips, nose almost brushing the collar of Fraser’s Henley. He rubbed my shoulder, not brusk—brisket—not rough or in a hurry.

“Mama used to sing to me when I was sick,” I mumbled, only it came out in a long slur of, “Mmasingamenisssick.” I still have no idea why I said it, or how the hell Fraser understood when I wasn’t really speaking in a language.

I half expected him to laugh at me. I’d’ve probably laughed at me. Instead he said, “Hmm,” real quiet, his jaw against my forehead. “Did it make you feel better?”

I nodded, curling in towards his heat as best I could, my hands still tucked up inside Fraser’s jacket so it wasn’t really cuddling. Really. Not even when Fraser set the tea mug on the couch so he could curl that other arm around me.

“Don’t listen to the words,” he said against my hair, then pulled back just enough to start.

 _“Ten long years ago, it seems so far away. Death called my mother home, seems like yesterday._ ”

I’d never heard Fraser sing before. Ever. It wasn’t something I thought I’d get to hear. Singing is naked. Worse than dancing by a long fucking shot. I couldn’t really hear the words with the sound of Fraser’s voice bending them, baring them. My heartbeat synced up with his rhythm, the steady rise and fall of the notes.

_“I don’t wanna be alone. Death take your hands away. Please don’t take my mother home. Death, please let her stay for a while. Don’t wanna be no motherless child.”_

When he was done, my eyelashes were wet, and the next note from his throat sounded strangled. Then his thumbs brushed over my eyes and I know he was whispering, “I’m so sorry, Ray, I don’t know many happy songs,” but I could barely hear him when I was falling asleep.

So yeah. That was the first time.

~*~

Second time he sang to me wasn’t actually _at_ me. He was still too pissed to do anything of _that_ sort, not with our matching bruises on display and the threat of One Last Case hanging over our heads. I thought he was gonna, that night out on the pier with the moonlight giving him a halo in addition to the standard issue Mountie one he always wore, breath puffing cold in the air as he talked about the Robert Mackenzie.

But nope. No song for Ray.

Not that I was expecting one or nothing, ‘cause—it’d just happened the one time. I mean, one time, special circumspecies, I was half-dead and pathetic, whatever, I get it. I’m nothing special, never have been. I bet loads of people heard Fraser sing before me, and there’d probably be a lot more once we were D-U-N, done.

Still. It was a long drive to reach the Henry Allan, and we didn’t have time to stop for coffee breaks. Long drive, and I had the music on to stay awake, but I couldn’t pick a channel, and I knew it was driving Fraser bugfuck in the passenger’s seat but I couldn’t stop. Not until I realized I was looking for a radio station that might play the kind of songs Fraser might know and sing along to.

Yeah. Smart one, Kowalski, they don’t have ESKIMO FM. Not this side of ‘The Lake They Call Michigan.’

I shot a glare over at Fraser, but he was slouched down low with his arms crossed over his belly, face turned to the window. Asleep, or faking it real well. But I just didn’t—I didn’t think Fraser knew how to slouch, same way I didn’t think he knew how to sing. Still, when you’re best at fucking everything it means the bad stuff too.

I kept my head turned straight ahead the whole rest of the way there. Even though it made my neck ache. And, okay, I caved when we were pulling up because Fraser made a sleepy sort of snuffling sound and I had to check to make sure he wasn’t _dying_ or something, okay?

Daylight made it harder to remember why I was angry. Fraser made it even harder with his jacket thrown over one arm, probably the same jacket I’d wrapped up in all those months ago when things were still good. I fixated on his holster—his stupid fucking pointless holster—on our way up the docking ladder, and wasn’t at all tempted to look, y’know, rear-ward.

Because, yeah. _That_ hadn’t changed.

Not even when Fraser had changed—into undercover clothes, that white sweater, which was about the loosest thing I’d ever seen on him, grungiest, _torn_ no fucking less, and he still looked like someone I wanted to wrap up in.

_No more, Kowalski. No fucking more._

I wanted Fraser to pick a fight with me again. I wanted to yell at him, shove him around—not hit him again, because in that split second of my life after the punch, I felt worse than I had every day of the week I had that flu bug, combined—just…I wanted to do anything but keep pretending we were okay. I wanted to either be okay, or not. And seeing as okay was off the table… I couldn’t sit there with Fraser and joke about food.

So I told him to keep them occupied. What does he do?

He sings them a song.

 _Them_ he’ll sing to. Of course.

There’s a niggling voice in the back of my head saying, “Well, you’ve never _asked_ him since the first time, have you?” but I blocked that pretty quick, what with the being handcuffed to a sinking ship and the nearly drowning and the buddy breathing, Fraser’s hands holding my head still as he pushed air past my startled lips—

You know that expression people say when they get terrified giddy? When their blood _sings?_ Yeah. It felt like that. Coulda been the oxygen deprivation, but that’s not what it felt like. Felt like Fraser was singing for me, just for me, even if he wasn’t really.

That, right there. That’s the moment we started to click again, just a little bit. Not fixed, but that’s what started fraying at my resolve to see this case to the end and split.

Course, he could’ve still split on me, and that kept us fighting as long as we did. Even when I knew my string was snapped, his had to snap, too. This was a two-way string, or street, or something. Submarine. Fraser snapped in that submarine, and if we’re being entirely, you know, honest, a good fuel to my fighting was the fact that Fraser was between my legs.

Not that that’s, uh, important.

~*~

We were in the park for numero three. This wasn’t too long after the Robert Mackenzie case was wrapped up, but with all the international paperwork that had to be done on both sides, I didn’t get to see Fraser very often for going on three weeks after we got back to Chicago. I don’t know if that’s what made me take off for Mexico with some girl I barely knew, or if it was just sheer D-U-M _dumb_ , but we hit the ground running after that, case-wise. Then suddenly I stop to take a breath, and I’m in the park with Fraser in the middle of the night, sitting around the campfire listening to his ghost stories.

I’m not sure if Average Joe on the Street would consider the LoooOOOOU in Lou Scagnetti to be singing, but my gut did. Reminded me _exactly_ why I’d run after that girl all the way to Mexico: Fraser. Fraser, Fraser, Fraser, Fraser, Frase. So off limits. So straight, if he wasn’t completely tuned out to sex in all categories to begin with. So, so much of a bad idea it hurt a little bit.

It was almost a relief when Mr. Tucci got shot. I mean, no offense, shit, and definitely rest in peace, but I didn’t shoot him. He lived a long life, and turned out to be on the dying end anyway--man, I am not talking myself out of this hole I have dug myself here. But the guy left millions for his grieving widow and smoking hot caretaker, who maybe might not have been quite so smoking if I hadn’t needed a distraction from Fraser, and _bad._

Well. We all know how that turned out. Right back at the campfire, just where we were before, only now I feel like double shit, first for using her, and then blaming her for murder, wrongly. And I—stupid—I’m laying it all out for Fraser, and I’m trying to tell him _he’s_ not the one who’s fucked up, or at least not the only one, and God, I feel like such an utter meat-head moron brain-dead loser. Stella should’ve capped me in the head and put the world out of its misery.

Then Fraser sang, “LoooOOOOU Scagnetti,” and—everything just shut up. I’ve got this helpless grin on my face, maybe because this point it’s laugh or cry, but… It’s good. One high note from Fraser I can carry in my pocket and pull out to look at. Then he gives me another one: “And for a brief second, LoooOOOOU Scagnetti could hear his inner bell ring as though it were rung by a thousand angels.”

Maybe that’s what Fraser’s doing to me. Ringing my inner bell.

I tried singing along the third time, but let’s face it. Dancing is more my thing. Plus the story was really freaking dark.  

“Fraser,” I said in the middle of our spaghetti ala campfire—which tasted fine, but even I know you boil pasta, not roast it like a chestnut, so I think (hope) that putting it on a stick was just to heat it up (or screw with my head)—“Is it, ah. Is it okay if I stay out here tonight?”

“Of course, Ray,” his mouth answered before his head could think it through, and it was kinda cute him blinking at me like that. “I was…under the impression that you didn’t particularly enjoy sleeping out of doors.”

“Hey.” I dropped a finger at him, “Did I ever say that? No, I did not.” I shook out the blankets I’d kept stashed in the Goat from last night with a decided, _Don’t underestimate me,_ flick of my wrist, sure that Fraser could still see me smirking.

“I believe you likened it to 'lying face down in the dirt,'” Fraser said, doing a little smirking of his own.

“Yeah well that doesn’t count, the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet. ‘Sides,” I added, shifting dance-style to face him, “this time, there’s a fire. It’s not camping ‘til you’ve got a fire—then it’s just lying in the dirt.”

“You didn’t seem to sleep very much, Ray,” Fraser tried, smile sort of falling.

I stopped what I was doing, half-way to tucked in. “Oh. Oh, I, uh. Didn’t realize. You’re probably super-sensed to, like, breathing patterns, huh?”

“Supersensitive?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Well.” Fraser looked like two seconds away from a neck crack, which was just…greatness. “We were lying rather…close.”

Straight. Straight. “Straight. I mean—Right. I, uh, look, I didn’t mean to keep you awake or nothing, Frase, I could’ve—“

Fraser’s eyes got big. “No, I was—I was staying awake to keep guard on the Tuccis.”

“Right, me too,” I lied real quick, sat a second, then popped upright, trying to get my shit together without lighting anything on fire. “Look, I’ll just—I’m gonna go. I don’t want you to miss out on two nights’ sleep, so…”

“I don’t want you to go sleepless either, Ray,” Fraser said in a definite rush as he got to his feet, gesturing to the scabby piece of dirt like it was the queen’s suite itself. “If you believe you could get some sleep out in the great outdoors then, then I would be happy to have you.”

He was all Mr. Polite Mountie, which is sometimes hard to buy once you’ve been socked by the guy. Plus there was that hesitation. Then, then.

“Nah, it’s okay,” I said, hugging the blankets to my chest and not at all staring at that dirt spot like I wanted it. I forced something like a chuckle. “I’m tired enough I’ll just drop anywhere—might as well be a bed. See y—“

“Ray,” he said, cutting me off (and that was more like it), “Why don’t you want to go home?”

My mouth kinda twisted. I know I didn’t scuff my boot, no matter what anyone says. But I was sort of looking bootwards when I answered. “There’s nobody there.”

“Ah,” Fraser said, quiet. Almost like a melody if I pretended real hard.

I snorted without any real feeling to it. “Ah.” Then I raised my head just enough to see him.

“Ray,” he said, reaching out to grasp my arm just above the bend, “Would you mind, terribly, staying at least until Diefenbaker returns? I understand this park is not entirely safe at night.”

He was teasing at me, eyes smiling. I ducked my head again then brought it up when I was sure he wouldn't see me grin. “Yeah, no, I hear there was a shooting just the other day.”

“Really.” Fraser pulled a face like this was news. “That’s too bad.”

“Mmm.”

“You might as well make yourself comfortable,” Fraser said when he saw me hesitating. “I don’t expect Dief back for some time.”

“Like dawn?” I played along, shaking out my blankets.

“Oh, at least.”

We settled down, me on one side of the fire, him on the other, our heads together. He banked the fire while explaining stuff about coals and heat distribution that I didn’t listen to, except for the sound of his voice. Then he stripped off his jacket and folded it neatly, tucking it under his head, and I was wishing really hard for the day when I’d stop wondering if it was the same coat I’d curled up in, if that was the same collar I’d accidentally licked. I was half-convinced by now that I’d hallucinated most of that day, anyway. I knew now that Fraser just didn’t touch people like that. Not even the damsels in distress.

I shoved aside thoughts of that coat—I couldn’t ask him for that. There was something I could, though. I’d been putting it off long enough.

“Hey, Frase?”

“Hm?” There was just enough light from the dying fire to see the dark smudge of his lashes blink open. “Yes, Ray?”

I rolled on my back, arms pillowing the back of my head. “I still feel like shit.”

The silence was just long enough to mean Fraser thought I was telling him that was somehow his fault, so I huffed and turned just enough to show him a raised eyebrow. “Would you like another story?” he offered, sounding uncertain and rightly so.

“Um, never ever again.” I said it with just enough truth that he laughed, which made me grin. That was like music too. “So when I was little,” I said, all casual-like, “my mom used to sing to me.”

Fraser went extra still, but this time I made sure not to look over. When he said, “Really?” it was even more casual-like than me.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t see the stars but I started counting them anyway. “When I was feeling bad.”

He was so quiet I could hear the fire snap, but it didn’t feel like a bad silence. Felt like one of those right before something good happens, like the silence before Stella said _Yes_.

“Did it make you feel better?” Fraser asked, and all the breath slid right outta me. I hadn’t realized how scared I’d been that it’d all been in my head, all this time. Nope, not now, not ever, and in the dim light I could let myself pretend Fraser’s eyes were dark as burning coals.

“Yeah,” I said on the last of my air, then rolled quick onto my side and tucked my hands under my chin, reflex. “You gotta know _something_ happy, though, by now.”

He laughed, this loud bright sound in the Chicago wilderness, and I heard him roll on his back rather than saw it. “Alright, I know one.”

I did not hold my breath. Fraser was superspecitive to breathing.

“ _If I had a boat,"_ he sang, that beautiful rich voice that rolls on through like a big broad open sky, _"I’d go out on the ocean. And if I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat. And we would both together, go out on the ocean, me upon my pony on my boat.”_

At the end of the song I fell asleep grinning, and I’m pretty sure I woke up that way, too. Face down in the dirt.

~*~

It only took that one time for Fraser to cotton on. I think he had some sort of well thought-out explanation for sense-memory whosit where he figured him singing made me feel safe and taken care of like he’d done for me that sick day. He was only half-wrong, so I let it slide.

I really did get the warm fuzzies when he sang to me. I just got… warm other things, too.

But like hell was I gonna tell him, “No, Frase, no more singing, it gives me a stiffy.” Because. Well, a lotta reasons, most of them selfish. The biggest one I had going for me, though, was that…Fraser looked fucking _beautiful_ when he did it. And yeah, you’re thinking, _This is different from all the damn time…how?_ but you haven’t seen Fraser beautiful until you’ve seen Fraser happy.  

I think he had some happy-go-sense-memory stuff working on him, too. Taking care of me, feeling useful and needed. And his warm fuzzies look beautiful.

He never abused his power, or overused it. I didn’t have to worry about him belting out a chorus from Sound of Music if I had a bitching hangover and a fierce need to bite people’s heads off. But if, say, I’m in the middle of reinvestigating the murder of a cop so a woman I put away won’t get lethal injection, then Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounties will find the one inmate in the entire jail who’ll ask him if he’ll sing to her, conveniently right by my side.

I almost got dragged through the bars by a beefeater with tits because the warm fuzzies hit me so hard. Out of the fucking blue. I didn’t even hardly see the rest of the walk to Beth Brotrell’s holding room, didn’t think about til later how much hell that would’ve been if he hadn’t sung a note.

I had K-K-K-Katie stuck in my head for thirty of the longest hours of my life (and not for the reasons you’d think, if you didn’t know the details). Didn’t help. I couldn’t make Fraser sing for me at the drop of a hat, I didn’t _want_ him to. I couldn’t let myself get addicted to this. Not when—

Not when I hadn’t done a damn thing that made me worthy of any comfort.

That hand on my shoulder almost broke me. I thought I was actually breaking, little pieces of me falling in the floor-well until there wouldn’t be much left besides the shoulder Fraser had a grip on.

Selfish save-your-skin preservation instincts kicked into over fucking drive, shoving me and my knee into the seat-divide like I was going to crawl in Fraser’s _lap._ His back hit the door, eyes huge, arms wide so they could stop me. Straight _. Straight. …Fuck._

Dief licked my ear and whined, his own kind of weird music, and I scraped up enough strength to stop and say, “I can’t—I can’t fucking _drive,_ Frase, can you get us out of here?”

His breath rushed out of him, and if it didn’t sound exactly relieved, well. My ears were screwed on wrong. Obviously. “Of course, Ray,” he murmured, and it sounded enough like a melody that I flinched.

I sank as low in his seat as Fraser had on our drive to the Henry Allan, wishing the whole way home that I could slip inside it like a jacket. It smelled like Fraser if I turned my face towards the window and pressed it to the leather.

I was done crying by the time we got home. Or I thought I was. One look in the rearview showed a steady stream of tears running down my cheeks and I barked out a laugh, loud and ugly enough to startle both Canadians in my car.

“Didn’t think this through,” I muttered to myself, pressing one shaking hand over the track they’d be able to see. “Sorry, Frase.” My voice sounded fucked raw. “I didn’t think. You and Dief take the Goat over to the consulate and I’ll take a cab there in the morning, yeah?”

Crinkly lines, though he wasn’t looking at me until he said my name. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some company, Ray?”

Dief whined encouragingly from the backseat and started licking the tears off my face, dangerously close to my eye. I fended him off and let myself consider it for a minute. _It’s not like we’d be up there unsupervised with Diefenbaker around._

“No,” I said, pushing open the door so sudden I about hit the pavement. “Nope, I’m…not gonna be any type of company as soon as I reach the liquor cabinet. Take care of my girl,” I added with a little wave that made me feel half drunk already, and pasted on a smile as I shut the door.

Fraser turned off the car.

“Um.”

He got out and flipped the seat forward for Dief, blinking those big blue eyes at me. “Yes, Ray?”

“You’re not _walking,_ ” I said, “It’s ten million blocks in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, no,” Fraser promised, swore, in fact, “We’re just stretching our legs.”

Dief barked agreement, wagging his tail.

Right.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked to my building, straining my ears for the click of wolf claws and Mountie boots, but nothing. When I turned around they were exactly how I’d left them, only about twenty feet closer.

I told him, “That’s creepy, Fraser.”

His shoulders shrugged, eyes wide. “What is?”

I rolled my own eyes and trudged inside, up the stairs, and every time I had to take a corner they were exactly how they had been, just one landing below. I snapped with one floor to go.

“Okay, now you’re freaking me out!” Dief laughed. Fraser told him to hush but didn’t mean it. “Just…” I sighed and pushed my door open, rubbing my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see them, “Just come on in.”

“Ah, thank you kindly, Ray.” Even not looking I could hear him smiling, and I could definitely smell him when he brushed by me. Dief’s tail whacked me in the leg.

“Ow,” I said, just for the…whatsit. For the point. ‘Cause I could and had the right.

“Dief, that wasn’t very nice,” Fraser scolded, but I’d have to be a lot dumber than a canine to buy it.

I ignored them both and went straight for the booze. I was pretty sure this time I’d stopped crying, but my insides felt all shivery still and the top of my mouth ached, like it wouldn’t take much.

“Ray.”

“Nah-uh, Fraser,” I cut him off, holding the bottle of cheap rum on high as I turned, “This here is a pre-emptive strike.”

“Against what?” His mouth was amused, but his eyes weren’t.

I didn’t answer, busy picking at the label. “You know they called me Kowalski today? Yesterday too.”

Fraser said, “Yes,” like he didn’t want to. Like he knew this was going somewhere bad. Who am I to disappoint?

“Forgot how much it sucked to be me.” I took a swig as I walked by, dragged the back of my hand over my mouth and headed into the bedroom without looking back. Either he was gonna follow or he was gonna leave, and either option was a-okay by me.

Dief didn’t take as long as Fraser did, flopping down by my ankles before I’d even stopped bouncing on the bed. Another burning gulp and I forced myself upright long enough to strip out of my jacket and top shirt, and when I fell back in my wifebeater I felt a little better until I caught Fraser leaning in the doorway, watching me.

I looked at the ceiling, sigh pressing out of my skinny chest. “The bed doesn’t bite, unless it’s Diefenbaker.”

“And even then…” Fraser sighed, then added, pointed (not to me), “You certainly _are_ going soft.”

Didn’t have to look to see him shaking his head at Dief’s annoyed grumbling, but my traitorous eyes flipped down to watch him shake off the bulky red and black lumberjack coat he had on. I don’t think I’d noticed until then that the sweater he was wearing looked a lot like the one he’d worn on the Henry Allan, only…clean, and not ripped up. Had some sort of diamond pattern across the front, looked really big and warm. Soft.

I took a deep breath and another pull off the bottle as Fraser kicked off—alright, _removed_ his boots and laid down real careful on the  
comforter beside me. Then I offered him a drink, unfolding my arm just enough to bump the glass against his hip.

“No, thank you, Ray,” he said but took the bottle anyway, holding it up to read the label, thumbnail following the line of the cartoon captain’s coat hem. I drew in a shuddery breath and held still, eyes burning with the image of Ben— _Fraser,_ fuck, _Fraser_ in my bed, on my pillows, dim light from my dingy lamp spilling gold across his skin. “You know alcohol is considered a depressant.”

“You don’t say,” I mumbled, not really listening as I took it back from him and swallowed down another mouthful. I could already feel it buzzing on my skin, creeping through my skull, probably why I said what I did next. “Always thought…” Hoarse. Not really audible. I tried again. “Always thought you didn’t drink ‘cause you never know when you’re gonna need to do your duty, or whatever, and maybe that’s it too but—“ I dragged in a breath and listened to it rattle through my tight throat. “I bet you just get really _sad._ ”

Tears burned down my raw face, not tears for me or Beth, this time. I think he must’ve caught the bottle before I dropped it to reach for him. I got a fistful of that thick wool sweater and held on, trying to stop shaking.

Ben shifted without a word, never once making me open my eyes or move on my own. Just suddenly his arm was under my head and curled around my shoulders, and he was on his side facing me, rum held between us just above where my hand was clenched in his clothes.

I kind of expected him to sing. Hell, I half expected him to kiss me. But he didn’t, and he _really_ didn’t—just put his head against mine and breathed, matching mine, so that I didn’t even realize I was slowing down when he slowed too.

“That’s a neat trick,” I told him a long while later, even got a grin on my face for a second.

Fraser did that, “Hm,” thing, and then, “Yes, it is.” He eased onto his back but didn’t move his arm, so I didn’t try to make myself let go. “My friend Innusiq taught it to me when I was…missing my mother too much.”

“That’s harsh,” I whispered, “People should always be allowed to cry about their folks.”

Fraser didn’t say anything, but he was quiet in a way that meant he didn’t really agree with me, or didn’t know how to.

I blinked just big enough to see that we both had our eyes closed, then kept ‘em shut. Took a deep breath, which Fraser matched exactly. Good.

“Hey Frase,” I said, just the barest bit of a tug on his shirt, “I’d like you to tell me about Victoria, sometime. Okay?” He was very, very still. Not breathing at all. I twitched my hand until one of my knuckles poked his belly and he let out his air. “Not right now and not right away, I just. It feels like something I should know about not from a file. You know? And it feels like…” _Something you should be allowed to cry about,_ but my mouth twitched and stopped making words.

I didn’t realize for a long time that my fist had unclenched and spread over Fraser’s stomach, rising and falling in time to our breathing. Heartbeats. I didn’t move it, but I think I must’ve tensed a little because his chest kinda lifted under me, and I felt him speak before I heard it.

“She was a rare thing,” he let out in a hush, then his hips shifted and his belly went taught as he sang, not any louder, “ _as fine as a bee’s wing. So fine a breath of wind could blow her away. She was a lost child. Oh she was running wild. She said as long as there’s no price on love, I’ll stay. And you wouldn’t want me any other way.”_

Later that night when I woke up sobbing trying to peel the bloody paper from my hands he crushed me in a hug, sang All the Pretty Little Horses to me until I calmed down. And how queer was that, right? Getting comforted by a song about ponies. But I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt cared about like that, and I fell asleep…thinking.

~*~

If this were a relationship, which I knew damn well it wasn’t _that kind,_ but any case, still. Red ships and green ships. There was a whole lotta give going on on Fraser’s side of the equation, and a whole lotta take take take on my side without me giving anything back. Fraser probably didn’t even notice. No, I was _sure_ Fraser didn’t notice because somewhere along the line someone taught him that’s what relationships _are._ You do all the giving, they do all the taking, and you get the pleasure of their company when they deem fit.

Just the fact that Fraser followed me into my apartment that night when I told him not to was a huge step, and I didn’t know how to let him know it was a step in the right direction without the usual relationship fallback of, you know, sex.

So I tried little things. You know, stuff I’d been doing before that I could do more of. Like bringing him lunch when I knew he’d be stuck in the consulate on Ice Queen duty. Only this one time I showed up and Fraser’s about to put something in a pan that looked like it should never see this side of the plumbing pipes, and I said, “Um, Frase, you better tell me you were about to burn that bad enough that Dief won’t drag it from the trash.”

“Why no, Ray,” he said, looking perplexed and mildly insulted, “It’s lichen soup, I wouldn’t waste it on—“

I hollered until he shut up, showed him the perfectly good sandwiches I’d gone to the trouble of purchasing, and made sure he had lunch and dinner every day until the lichen soup expired.

You know, stuff like that. It wasn’t…exactly right, but it was the best I could do til I figured something better.

I touched him more. And not _touched,_ I mean—shoulder bumps and nudges and making sure he knew I was around. That I had his back, you know, thick or thin. And I was watching like a hawk for signs that he didn’t like it, ‘cause I’d seen him freeze on me before, and maybe he’d decided it was a weird Chicago thing—or a weird Ray thing—but he didn’t seem to mind so much. And I did it some with the other guys too so Fraser wouldn’t think nothing queer.

Then Tracy Jenkins… Well.

Well, so Fraser. So the thing I didn’t tell you is that while I’m running around getting Fraser real food and buddy-touching, Fraser was closing off. Not sos you’d notice, not so you could freaking _call_ him on it, he just wasn’t…there. His face was there and his mouth said the right things but if you knocked on his skull and hollered, “HELLO, ANYONE HOME?” nobody’s in but us chickens.

And suddenly I was only pretty sure I had a handle on Fraser at all, because I’d been _watching_ , damn it, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the touching. Guy jumped out a window without checking to see if what he was landing on was secure, I better hope to God that’s not about me.

“Look, Fraser—“

He did look, but he looked kind of surprised seeing as we were sitting in the mixing room of Tracy’s recording studio and not in the middle of a conversation. The rest of the group was fighting just fine without us so I mumbled a completely pointless, “We’re just going to—be in here,” and dragged him out past the music goons in the hall to a side-room, holding onto about two inches of red serge above his elbow.

“Ray, what on earth—?”

I flicked on a light. The room wasn’t much bigger than the supply closet back at the station, but this one had nice foam padding on the walls which would be fucking _greatness_ for…soundproofing. Right.

“So Fraser.” I cleared my throat and looked bootward, real aware that my shoulders were hunched as high as my folded arms. “Look, uh. I told myself after the Henry Adam—“

“Henry Allan, I think you mean,” Fraser corrected, oh so earnestly blank _._

“Allan. Right.” Fuck. I _knew_ that, I knew these things and these words in my head but Fraser made them come out wrong, sometimes. I chewed on my bottom lip hard enough to feel it, hoping that might help. “So I told myself after that case if we ever started glitching—“

“Glitching?”

“You know, not clicking. You set ‘em up, I knock ‘em down, Abbot and Costello, a— _hey,_ yeah, a duet. You and me.”

His eyebrows came together just a fraction of an inch, right before he flicked his tongue over his teeth. Ha, gotcha. It wasn’t a neck crack or thumb to his eyebrow but I’d take what I could get.

“Yeah,” I pressed, running with that idea, “It’s like—Feels like there’s some poser standing in the middle of our band singing a flat note, Frase.”

“Ah,” he said, and there was the eyebrow rub. But nothing else. No contradiction or reasoning.

Being right didn’t feel as good as I thought it should. Because… _Ah_. I held my arms tighter. “Right. So…I figure I’m the bimbo with the flat note, here. But you gotta tell me what I’m doing wrong here, Frase, or I won’t know to knock it off.”

“I—“ Whoa. I’ve probably seen Fraser stammer less than I’ve heard him sing, so that’s saying something. “It’s not— _you,_ Ray. _I—_ I’m the—“

“It’s not you, it’s me,” I laughed, but not too well, “Never heard that one before.”

“Ray,” he said, and there, _there_ he was, and I jumped a little at his hand on my arm because…probably because I’d been so focused on doing the touching that I hadn’t realized he’d just _stopped._ Touching me.

…Way to fucking go, Kowalski.

Cowboy George poked his head in the room right then and Fraser’s hand vanished behind his back, and I really coulda kicked old George right in the head. “Hey, boys, Trace needs the room for sound checkin’.”

 _Eat shit and die, George,_ I thought, but said, “Yeah, we’re done,” and wandered off to bother the bodyguard. Didn’t look back at Frase once. What was I gonna see? Relief? No thank you.

Sometimes I think Fraser really didn’t mean to get roped into singing backup for Tracy Jenkins. Other times I gotta wonder what the hell you go tinkering around with someone’s song if you don’t expect a courtesy invite.

All I really knew when I got back was that Fraser was singing. Smiling right at me through the glass like a little kid up on stage, and I’d’ve had to been bleeding out to stop from grinning back. I felt like a little kid’s dad in the crowd, too, trying to get him to move, and he’s up there with his hands tucked behind his back wobbling like a weeble, and it feels like he’s pushing air into my lungs all over again.

Still.

I managed to get myself under control enough to poke fun at him later, because he really was moving like a block of wood. Only when he apologized he really seemed to _mean_ it, Jesus, so I added, “Singing like a bird.”

His whole face lit up, so sudden it was like staring at the flashbulb when a camera goes off an inch from your face. “Really?”

I reeled a little, fucking stunned, and blurted the first thing that fell out of my juvenile head. “I didn’t tell you what kind of bird.”

Had no one—fuck, did Fraser not _know?_

I mean, what _,_ did he think I was humoring him? Or—

The case got in the way again, and I didn’t get to bring it up again until Cowboy George was well and locked up, after Tracey’s gig. Fraser, of course, volunteered to help clean up since he was (however temporarily) part of the band, and what? I’m… We were still glitching a little. I get a little overprotective when we’re glitching, sue me.

So I’m wandering around the floor, wiping down tables and flipping up chairs, and I’d finished half my section before I got the guts up to ask, “Hey Frase?”

“Yes, Ray.” He’d left his jacket on the stage, Henley sleeves rolled up as he paid a lot more attention to table cleanliness that I ever would.

“You know when I, ah.” I flipped the dishrag over in my hands. “You know when I told you you were singing like a bird?”

“Yes, Ray,” he said in his _Ah_ tone of voice, like he was preparing himself for the punchline.

“Yeah.” The cloth was dirty and damp, smelled like wet dust and beer. “Did you say ‘Really’ because you don’t think you’re a good singer, or did you say it ‘cause you didn’t think I thought so?”

Fraser looked stunned. I don’t think I’d ever seen him that floored. And I wasn’t even looking at him long, I had a table rag to twist.

“I…” He cleared his throat and I watched his feet, saw the heels come together in a way that meant he was standing up Mountie straight, his default for getting flustered. His Frannie-stance, actually. My gut flopped like the dishrag. “I’ve never supposed myself to be the best—“

“You are the best, Fraser,” I said instantly, head snapping up so he could read it on my face. “You are the very best.”

He blushed serge red in the dim lights. I coughed and turned back to my table, feeling giddy-jittery like I’d just dodged a bullet.

“I am told, however,” he said, voice kinda low, “that my rhythm leaves something to be desired.”

My head ducked automatically to hide my grin, and then I checked the stage. Most all of the guys were out back lugging sound equipment into the vans, and the ones who weren’t were too busy to notice a flatfoot and a Mountie out of uniform past the stage lights.

“Come here,” I said, and tugged him into a cleared space in the middle of the floor but off to one side, behind a huge stack of chairs and where the house speakers were playing just loud enough to be heard.

“Ray?”

“You, Benton Fraser,” I said, slapping my hands together real quiet as I moonwalked back a step, “I am going to teach rhythm.”

He smiled a little, doubting. “Here? Now?”

“No, there, whenever. Yes, here, now. Listen,” I said, planting myself shoulder to shoulder with him as I pointed towards the ceiling.

 _I hope that I don’t fall in love with you,_ Marc Cohn crooned. My lips twisted. Ironic son of a bitch. _‘Cause falling in love just makes me blue._

“Okay?” I asked. Fraser nodded uncertainly. I rolled my eyes. “Right. Okay, now, sway.” Fraser instantly jostled me, thumping against my shoulder. “Whoa, hey!”

“I’m sorry, Ray,” he mumbled, serge-red for shame now and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders without thinking and pulled him close to my side.

“Hey,” I promised, “Not a natural, no biggie. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.” I arched an eyebrow at him, waiting for it.

“I don’t think anyone can, realistically.”

“You do it,” I shrugged, then turned my attention back to the task at hand. Left my arm where it was, though. “Alright, now think about it. Could you sing along to this song off the beat?”

I meant it as a rhetorical question. Should’ve figured.

“ _I can see that you are lonesome, just like me,”_ he hummed, sliding over the words he didn’t know, _And it being late you’d like some company…_

And I’ve got Fraser singing in my ear, under my arm, close as he’s ever been but this time we’re awake, not drunk, not sad, not sick. In _public_. I closed my eyes and took a breath and forced myself to relax, so that when we swayed Fraser was so focused on keeping the melody he didn’t even notice.

_Well I’ve had two, I look at you, and you look back at me. The guy you’re with has up and split, the chair next to you’s free._

I could’ve turned him. One slow step to the right—he wouldn’t even notice, singing with his eyes closed—and we’d be dancing.

_And I hope that you don’t fall in love with me._

I don’t know how long I was watching him. I only know exactly when his eyes opened and he saw the view shifting in front of us, the moment when he realized we were moving. To the beat.

“Ray, look!” he said and instantly lost it, but it was worth it to hear him laugh my name like that.

If my own smile was a little strained, who cared? We were officially back in the groove, needle no longer skipping, but god fuck if we weren’t still going around in one big circle.

~*~

I knew what I had to do. Sorta.

Alright, I knew I had to do _something._ I couldn’t keep taking from Fraser, that left me way too big and him way too little and we’d both Sprit and Sprat ourselves to death so no. Finito. No more singing.

Not from him, anyway.

See, for a second I figured—the dancing. Maybe. Maybe I could teach him and that’d be my gift. But he wasn’t _teaching_ me to sing and it’s not like I could sweep him up and do the polka whenever the need arose. It just. It wasn’t quite right.

So I dragged out my records every spare second I found, pulled them off the shelves spread them around me on every available surface and I listened. Record after record after record, skipping impatiently over the tracks I knew weren’t it, stopping halfway through to scramble for the cover of that half song something reminded me of, flipping back, straining my ears listening to the lyrics backwards and forwards and backwards again, just in case.

Fraser sneezed the first time he got in the car with me after a morning going through the boxes in the back of my closet, so I told him I was going through some stuff but I didn’t say why. What was I gonna say, anyway? I’d obviously lost my mind.

_Hey, Frase, no worries, just looking for our song. Take your fingers off the radio dial before I break them._

It wasn’t even our song I was looking for.

I knew I was freaking him out just a little. He probably thought it was a Stella thing—hell, most of my manic obsessions were, I’ve got a track record, he’s a smart guy. But working all manic like that got me through all the records I owned in two weeks, and with the radio only playing the same ten songs every day I figured out a) I didn’t have it already, and b) it might take a while to find.

I could be patient. I could keep my ears open and wait. I could calm down so Fraser and Dief stop looking at me like I’m—what’s Fraser say? Few marbles short of an elevator?

Whatever.

Some days I thought I had it. It’d be humming in my skull right behind my left ear, and I’d turn everything off and park the car and try to hum along, try to force it to the surface. When Fraser wasn’t in the car, of course. First and last time I did that he was convinced I was hearing a bomb and made us vacate the GTO until a bomb squad nearly tore her to pieces.

But up until then it’d been a pretty good day. Those almost-had-it days were usually good ones. Days when Fraser laughed and meant it, when we were really, _really_ clicking on a case, when we were really clicking on _life._

We were so—so freaking in tune that when he started getting homesick, I wandered around for days trying to figure out why I felt like I was missing a limb before I figured out I was missing _Canada._ By like, proxy.

Weird as fuck to miss something you’d never had, but I guess I figured that right there was me and Fraser. Me missing someone I’d never had.

Still, I figured we had time. Maybe the song was Canadian. Maybe me and Frase could go up North for a vacation and get this homesickness worked out of our systems and maybe I’d find the song. We had _time._

Until suddenly I’m staring at a balding guy with a big nose and an ugly mustache, and Fraser’s saying my name with a shake in it but he’s not talking to me, and it’s not really my name. And we didn’t have any time at all.

I meant what I said to Thatcher—and what the hell was I confiding in the Ice Queen for? Desperate much?—about not…not fucking knowing who you are when you aren’t around a person any more. There Fraser was doing stakeout with the real me, and I got left with being the fake him. Fake Vecchio.

Good thing people shooting at you tends to take your mind off blowing your brains out.

Falling down a mile deep crack in the ice tends to work too.

I was pretty out of it, crushed against Fraser, mind numbingly cold everywhere he wasn’t touching me. I remember mumbling something about King Tut, and trying, trying really hard to tell him I wished we’d dated. Except I think I called him a supermodel. God knows he’s pretty enough. (Like I said, really fucking out of it.)

Then he asked me about death.

“Oh, I’ve faced Death,” I promised, letting my head fall back. No biggie, Death was. Pushover with a face like a pincushion. Philbert “Death” McGrew. He and his heavy metal band had me pinned down in the concrete warehouse they’d broken into to rehearse, sharpening sticks and rocks and things for which to bash my brains in.

“What did you do?” Fraser asked like he actually heard all that, and who the hell knows? Maybe he did.

“I sang.” _So when you’re near me, darling can’t you hear me, S.O.S.,_ as loud as I could scream it, and they seemed to take it as some sort of audition. Confused ‘em just long enough for the cavalry to arrive. “Course it was Abba,” I mumbled mostly to myself, “so it spoiled the romantic affect.” Can’t remember why I said that. “But yeah, I sang.”

“Then we should sing.”

Fraser sounded so damn serious I didn’t realize what he’d said until the notes were spilling out of him. Franklin and the Beaufort Sea, and I closed my eyes and wished so hard that this was the song.

He paused just a split second before he started the next verse, and I made sure there was a smile on my face even though my cheeks were frozen, and it felt like something was ready to break.

I was pretty much ready to kick it in that crevasse. So ready, song or no, that when Delmar hauled us out? I started jittering. Bad. Like a junkie, or—no, like, like I’m about to step in the ring, but not right before the match. Day of, that morning, when I wake up with my blood buzzing with the knowledge that if I stop shadowboxing I’m gonna haul off and hit someone before I even see the mat.

~*~

I was gonna dump Thatcher in the snow if she took so much as one more sauntering step towards Fraser, so help me fucking god. And after that I was gonna do Fraser—and not _do_ Fraser, I’m talking… Fuck all Canadians to _hell_.

Shadowbox. Shadowbox. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I got back to the tent while Frobisher still had the dogs howling, knowing I was fucked. _Angry_. And frustrated and pissed the fuck off and _hurt_ because, because I try to tell a guy to choose me, just once, god, please, choose me—I took a breath and stopped shadowboxing—and he spins me some yarn about how we’ll always be friends no matter the distance and blah de fucking blah it feels like the ‘let’s be friends’ speech but in Canadian. _Fuck._

I’ve got this loud aching ringing in my ears that won’t let me lay down, let alone go to sleep, and I can’t—I can’t even look at Fraser because I know I will kick him in the head and kiss him stupid instead of better. Know it like it’s pounding on my hide, know it like I know I don’t want to go back to Chicago and that’s _freaking me out_ , because if I had anything at all that was me it was that city. I don’t even have the fucking _song._

 _I want,_ I thought, and then—

Something snapped, like a guitar string thwapping my skull, and I was reeling so bad I didn’t even realize Fraser was standing there staring at me for way too long.

“Ray—“ he started, too worried for even crinkly lines around his wide, way-too-blue-to-be-real eyes, and I threw out a hand to shut him up.

“ _Shh.”_ Almost got it. _Almost._ I grabbed Fraser’s coat the same spot I’d grabbed his sweater and started running, tripping and falling mostly but dragging him to the woods, trying to keep the words in my mouth even as I dredged them up.

He probably thought something was wrong, like Muldoon’s men were sneaking up on the camp, until I threw him against a tree and crowded up close and then he probably thought different. Then it was just me who was wrong, me who was throwing my gloves down on the ground to get my cold fingers against his colder cheeks.

“ _I want you, you, you,_ ” I sang, rough and barely on tune, watching emotions flicker across his face, “ _All I want is you, you, you. All I want is you.”_

Fraser was staring at me. I stared back. Then I closed my eyes and shifted on my feet—because there was more to the song I just knew it, something about stars above and all my love—but huge leather gloves covered my ears so all I could hear was a muffled…nothing. Not my gloves. Not my hands. I opened my eyes.

Fraser’s were wet, and he gasped when I met them like he was seeing something in me he hadn’t let himself look for, or like I’d put my hand on his belly and pushed the air out of him.

“Fuck, _Frase_ …” I whispered, crowding even closer, because Fraser should never have to feel that naked. Emotionally. Physically he could get as naked as he wanted, and I trailed my thumb along the edge of his jaw and showed him a grin, trying to coax one from him like I’d said that out loud. “Hey…”

He laughed just a little, wetly, then shook his head, moving his grasp to my shoulders. “Ray. You’re going back to Chicago.”

“No!” I said, surprising both of us enough that his mouth went slack for a split second and I had to take a step back. “No, wait, what’s the—I’d give you the _stars above, sun on the brightest day…_ ” God, I was choking up here. I gave up and moved close again, half singing the words. “Give you all my love, if only you _would say…”_

His arms—six sizes too big with all the padding we were wearing—wrapped so tight around me I didn’t have the breath in me to keep going. That, though? That was just fine. Because Fraser was murmuring the words against my mouth, cold lips and hot tongue telling me he’d _seen_ me, he’s seen just me. He’s only been singing for me.

_All I want is you, you, you. All I want is you._

I’d known the song wasn’t ours, but I’d always thought of it as mine in the sense that it was mine to give to Fraser. I hadn’t let myself think that it was my song for me, _about_ Fraser.

“I wasn’t kidding about the adventure,” I blurted, almost right into the kiss before I could make myself pull back far enough to see him. “I want to—the reaching out hand—and, you know, I’m not all that good with dead guys or the artic so I was kinda hoping—“

“I know a lot of ballads,” Fraser said, gloved thumb trailing the shape of my ear as he put on his most serious face.

I grinned. “Really?”

“Long and involved,” he promised, leaning in to kiss my smiling mouth, “and totally, utterly miserable.”

 

THE END


End file.
